The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is no longer working on the contaminated ground water at Wedron and has turned cleanup over to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
Because the source of contaminants was determined to be petroleum from underground storage tanks, the federal Superfund program no longer applies to the Wedron cleanup because of a Superfund petroleum exclusion, according to an Illinois EPA spokeswoman.
The likely source of contamination has zeroed in on the former Hoxsey store and gas station.
Two underground petroleum tanks were removed in 1978 at the Hoxsey site but contamination remains.
If this does not work, the Illinois EPA said it will look at using Leaking Underground Storage Tank Fund money to clean it up.
Some shallow water wells remain and some additional wells have shown contamination.
Some of Wedron’s water samples showed elevated levels of benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene, compounds from gasoline and other petroleum fuels.
Because there is no regulatory standard for silica in air, the results were compared against a health-based criteria of 3 micrograms per cubic meter.
The north site showed an average of 1.45 micrograms per cubic meter, with 37 percent of samples below the detectable level.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency